


I don't want to be alone (When these bones decay)

by shield_maiden



Series: Bellarke One-shots [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2014-11-13
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2611022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shield_maiden/pseuds/shield_maiden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An anon on tumblr requested 'Bellarke, just some "I'm so glad you're okay after all, but totally going to show it in nonverbal ways" happiness'.<br/>'Clarke is not the same as she was before being captured, the differences are subtle, she’s quieter sometimes or her hands start shaking, but the signs are there. Bellamy knows what they mean, because he experiences them too.'</p><p>And I really tried, but happy fluffy Bellarke didn't want to play, so instead you get PTSD!Clarke with five times Bellamy made sure she was okay by doing little things like bandaging her wounds or helping her with nightmares. I'm sorry, you'll probably all hate me for this angst-fest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't want to be alone (When these bones decay)

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd and not my characters.  
> Comments and critiques are my life force.  
> Send me a prompt on tumblr @ crimson--petrichor  
> Technically not a tie in to any other one-shots at this time.  
> Title from 'Run' by Daughter.
> 
> This is my headcanon for Bellarke immediately post Mount Weather. Realistically I think they will both be very damaged, not just by Mount Weather, but by EVERYTHING that's happened in the months/years leading up to earth until then. We've already seen bits of Bellamy's guilt complex.
> 
> There was meant to be a +1 of Clarke helping Bellamy, but it wasn't working out. And at some point I may actually revisit this prompt and try to make it genuinely happy and fluffy. IDK.

1.  
She escaped from Mount Weather, not just her, all of them did. But Bellamy knows that she was the driving force behind it. Clarke is not the same as she was before being captured, the differences are subtle, she’s quieter sometimes or her hands start shaking, but the signs are there. Bellamy knows what they mean, because he experiences them too.

She’s littered with deep cuts when she returns, at first he thinks they tortured her. And when he asks the first time she just shakes her head and avoids his eyes. Bellamy asks Jasper a few days later, and he’s surprised that the other man gives up the truth so easily. “She did that herself. They would take her to medical and she would try to get intel. Clarke never stopped trying to get to you, Bellamy.”

That knowledge makes him feel sick with shock. And the next time he sees her dressing them he simply takes over as gently as he can. Cleaning and bandaging each of them the way he’s seen her do a thousand times to the others. He smooth’s the last piece of tape with his thumb and sits back. He wants to tell her he knows, and that it’s okay. That he wishes she had never done this to herself, but the words turn to ash in his mouth.

2.  
One day he’s run out of things to do (since when has that ever happened?), so he goes to find Clarke. She’s in the med bay, facing the door way. The sharp smell of alcohol reaches Bellamy’s nose and he grimaces. She’s cleaning her medical tools, rudimentary though they are. The pliers she used to pull the bullet from Raven’s back are sitting in a shallow dish of the stuff.

Sitting down beside her he grabs a cloth and wipes them down for her. They work steadily, conversing quietly about how things have been since she go back, she puts things into the alcohol, he takes them out and wipes them and puts them away. When they’re done she pulls a flask out from her pack with a grin and they pass it back and forth until they’re comfortably warm from drink.

As they both stand to leave she thanks him, and tells him he didn’t have to help her. He replies with a smile.

3.  
Bellamy starts bringing her food after a week. A ration pack in the mornings, a small handful of nuts or whatever he can scrounge up at midday, sometimes when he knows she’s particularly busy he even brings her meat from the fire. He tells himself he’s only doing it to stop her from dropping dead from exhaustion and lack of food. 

He’s definitely not doing it for the little smiles she gives him, or the brief touches as food changes hands, even though he carefully catalogues each of them and turns them over in his mind for hours after. He’s surprised Clarke lets him help her, she’s always been miss independent, and in many ways she still is. Nightmares, panic attacks, and a whole fuck tone of psychological damage aside, she’s still the Clarke he knows, but on the days she can’t be, he wants her to know that he’ll pick up the slack.

That she doesn’t have to feel guilty for being damaged.

4.  
Clarke nightmares more often than not. The first few nights he’s jerked awake by her screams from the tent next to his and he springs into action immediately without even thinking. He’s out of his own tent and ducking into hers without a second thought and getting on his knees by her bed and shaking her awake much like he used do to when O was a child. 

“Shhh Clarke. You’re okay.” He whispers as she sits up, eyes wide with terror. “It was just a dream, you’re safe. I promise.”  
He stays with her, sitting on the ground until her breathing gets slow and even, and then waits a few minutes more to be sure she’s sleeping peacefully before creeping back to his own tent as the sky begins to lighten. 

They continue like this for a few times, he doesn’t know if she remembers what happened the next day, they don’t talk about it. Until one day they do.  
Her cries pull him out of a blissful sleep and like every night before this one, his feet lead him to her tent where he wakes and then soothes her back to sleep. Sometime after that he must fall asleep himself, because he wakes the next day on the ground in her tent, with a horrible crick in his neck and a confused Clarke looking at him over the edge of her bed.

“Did you stay there all night?” She asks him as he rolls his neck in an attempt to ease the stiffness.

“Yep.” He grunts in reply. He hates mornings. And she’s far too awake for someone who nightmares frequently.

That night, the pattern changes before it even begins. 

She approaches him near the fire. Her hands are twisting together, always moving. His first instinct is to reach out and make them stop, to calm her. But he doesn’t get a chance to because then she’s talking and it’s all Bellamy can do to keep up with the rushed jumble of words that fly out of her mouth.

“Ithinkyoushouldsleepwithme.” She says the first time and he’s genuinely confused so she takes a deep breath and repeats it, slowly.

“I think you should sleep with me.” She repeats, a blush coloring her cheeks as she realizes what she just said to him. “I mean, I think it would help, with the nightmares, and you wouldn’t have to get up. If we, you know, were in the same bed.”

Bellamy thinks about it for all of two seconds before he agrees. If she thinks it will help, he’s willing to try it. But he can’t help teasing her just a little bit. “I knew you secretly wanted to sleep with me.” He grins as she hits him, but she’s laughing too and he realizes then how much he missed that sound.

That’s how they end up in the same bed, his arm wrapped snuggly around her waist.

5.  
He goes spear fishing with Miller early one morning. Pulling himself out of their bed and away from Clarke’s warmth was hard, but he did it. The sun is well and truly up and they’re on their way back to camp with a dozen fish between them.

They get back to camp and immediately Jasper is jogging over to him, a look of relief on his face. Bellamy frowns, what the hell could’ve happened while they were gone?  
“Thank god you’re here, man.” The other man says as he comes to a stop in front of them “It’s Clarke, she woke up and you weren’t there and she’s freaking out and she won’t stop crying.”

He blindly shoves his fish and spear into Millers hands and crosses the camp to their tent, his heart hammering in his chest. He pushes the plastic aside and his heart aches when he sees Clarke, curled in a corner sobbing as Raven hovers anxiously nearby trying to calm her. Keeping his actions deliberately calm he walks over and crouches in front of Clarke.

“Hey, Princess.” He murmurs softly. The relief he feels when she looks up at him is quickly replaced with something else he can’t quite name when she only cries harder.  
Pulling her into his lap he nods at Raven and Jasper, letting them know that he’s got this and that they can leave. Once it’s just them he turns his attention back to the blonde in his lap, her arms are around his neck and she’s holding on like she thinks the second she lets go he’ll disappear again.

“Jas said you got upset when I wasn’t here this morning.” 

“Mhmm. I thought you’d gone and it reminded me of Mount Weather all over again.” She sniffled.

“I’m sorry, Princess. I went fishing with Miller early, and you looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to wake you.” He says, his hands stroking her back gently.

“S’okay.” She mumbles against his chest with a nod, all the tension slowly draining out of her body. “Just don’t do it again.”

“I won’t, I promise.” He chuckles.

He understands then, that he is the glue that keeps her together, even though she’s fracturing into a million tiny pieces every single day.


End file.
